REVEALing Signatures of Habitable Worlds Hidden by Stellar Activity

揭示恒星活动隐藏的宜居世界的特征

• 批准号: EP/Z000181/1
• 负责人: Andrew Collier Cameron
• 金额: $ 293.75万
• 依托单位: University of St Andrews
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2024
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2024 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=EP%2FZ000181%2F1
• 关键词: REVEALing; Signatures; Habitable; Worlds; Hidden

For millennia people have wondered, "Do other Earths exist?" "Are they common?" "Would they show signs of life?". We now have the technical capability to answer these questions. New radial-velocity spectrometers are capable of detecting the reflex motions of starshosting Earth-mass planets in their habitable zones; the James Webb Space Telescope has the power to probe the atmospheres of rocky exoplanets. Yet the unprecedented precision of these instruments' measurement capabilities is up against a fundamental astrophysically-imposed barrier to achieving these goals: contamination of exoplanetary signals by stellar activity and variability. Further progress is contingent on solving this "variability problem".REVEAL gathers world-leading experts in exoplanetary and stellar physics to tackle this problem in synergy:- We will build on recent advances in magnetohydrodynamic simulations of stellar atmospheres, and data-driven efforts to separate the exoplanet signal from the stellar variability.- We will simulate the "ground truth" of the turbulent physics of entire stellar photospheres resolved at the level of individual convective cells for a broad class of stars.- We will model the emergent spectra of these "virtual" stars and "observe" them using the same data-processing pipelines as stellar radial-velocity and transit-spectroscopy observations.We will continue to observe the Sun and stars hosting small planets found with TESS and PLATO. The stars' own spectra will REVEAL the clues needed to disentangle stellar variability from our measurements of their planets' masses and the fingerprints of molecules in their atmospheres. Our unified efforts will enable the new cutting-edge space observatories and ground-based facilities to realize the full potential of their designs, bringing us closer to the most profound discoveries we could hope to achieve in our lifetimes - the identification of another Earth or even possible signs of life on another planet.

几千年来，人们一直想知道“是否存在其他地球？” “它们常见吗？” “他们会表现出生命迹象吗？”我们现在有技术能力来回答这些问题。新的径向速度光谱仪能够探测在其宜居带中托管地球质量行星的恒星的反射运动；詹姆斯·韦伯太空望远镜有能力探测岩石系外行星的大气层。然而，这些仪器前所未有的精确测量能力却面临着实现这些目标的天体物理学的基本障碍：恒星活动和变异性对系外行星信号的污染。进一步的进展取决于解决这个“可变性问题”。REVEAL 聚集了世界领先的系外行星和恒星物理学专家来协同解决这个问题：-我们将利用恒星大气磁流体动力学模拟的最新进展以及数据驱动的努力来解决这一问题。将系外行星信号与恒星变化分开。-我们将模拟整个恒星光球层的湍流物理的“地面真相”，在单个对流细胞的水平上解析，以获得广泛的结果恒星类别。-我们将对这些“虚拟”恒星的出现光谱进行建模，并使用与恒星径向速度和凌日光谱观测相同的数据处理管道“观察”它们。我们将继续观察太阳和托管恒星与苔丝和柏拉图一起发现的小行星。恒星自身的光谱将揭示我们从测量其行星质量和大气中分子指纹中解开恒星变异性所需的线索。我们的共同努力将使新的尖端太空天文台和地面设施充分发挥其设计的潜力，使我们更接近我们有生之年希望实现的最深刻的发现——识别另一个地球，甚至另一个星球上可能存在生命的迹象。